8th Grade Teaching Materials for NGSS

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Deconstructing the Debate

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Summary:
One of the best ways to learn something is to teach it to someone else. “While we teach, we learn,” said Seneca, the Roman philosopher. With this in mind, one of my last lessons in Unit 4 asks students to do just that.

Students played the role of National Geographic employees. Every month, National Geographic publishes a magazine full of articles, and every month people write to the magazine to comment, or compliment, or complain. The students’ job today was to respond, via email, to some of these comments. I provided them with seven different different fictional emails, each with a fake email address to go along with it. All the students had to do was write back. “No, it’s not just a theory,” they said. “Yes, we have seen it happen before,” another wrote. And “I hope you work things out with your brother,” she added.